


do not go gentle

by chronicallytiredofyourshit



Category: The Thick of It (TV)
Genre: Angst, Apologies, F/M, Fluff, I cried writing this, Malcolm Goes To Prison, Post-Goolding Inquiry, References to Addiction, Slow Burn, So much angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-20
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-18 21:54:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 4,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28874166
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chronicallytiredofyourshit/pseuds/chronicallytiredofyourshit
Summary: Malcolm and Nicola learn to let go of the past and find a future together.
Relationships: Nicola Murray/Malcolm Tucker
Comments: 16
Kudos: 25





	1. in mourning for the living

**Author's Note:**

> Someone needs to stop me starting new fics and I cried toooo many times writing this. Some very brief mentions of alcoholism & death in the first chapter.

When Nicola Murray dies, she does not go peacefully or quietly as people would’ve expected her to. She doesn’t slip away softly. Nicola Murray goes in a blaze of glory, crashing and burning for the whole world to see.

Her death is sudden and unexpected, particularly to herself. No one notices the cracks forming around her. The party was falling apart, that much was obvious, and despite Malcolm’s insistence, it wasn’t all Nicola; it was an endless list of sex scandals and war crimes and paedophile minsters spanning across the entirety of their time in power and occasionally out of it.

After being humiliated publicly, turned into a laughing stock and a scapegoat, most people would assume Nicola was relieved to finally be free of it all. She wasn’t. She wanted to scream at the top of her lungs  _ it wasn’t my fault  _ over and over again until she was blue in the face because it wasn’t, it genuinely wasn’t. Sure, maybe she was never cut out for it in the first place but she had said that! She had warned Malcolm, she had told him that she never really wanted it. What Nicola wanted was to leave the government so she could finally divorce James and get a clean break by moving her family to America.

However, she was deeply ashamed to admit it was Malcolm that made her stay. The way he had taken a step closer and asked so softly for her to stay, stay for him. She had begrudgingly agreed, storming out of his office afraid, in the same way a driver feels when they realise a crash is inevitable, and she felt as though she was being strangled when she realised this meant she may never divorce her husband.

Despite all that, Nicola does pity Malcolm in the end. She had only wasted a few years of her life in aid of a party that was just as bad as the opposition but Malcolm had devoted his entire life to it, with every ounce of his being. When Sam calls and tearfully tells Nicola that Malcolm is going to prison and has told Sam that under absolutely no circumstances should she visit him, Nicola apologises. She’s not sorry he’s in prison but she’s sorry he sold his soul and that Sam is a victim of Malcolm just as much as she is. The only difference between them was that Sam still believed in him. Nicola tells Sam to visit her anytime and it’s not long until they’re having coffee together every other Sunday.

When she is kicked out on her arse she takes the small silver lining and leaves James. Well, in a sense he leaves her, in grand and dramatic fashion. He yells and curses and she thanks whoever’s listening that she had the good sense to send the children to her mothers for the weekend. When he grabs her by the collar of her shirt and raises a fist above her face she just smirks, completely unafraid, because she can see in his eyes that he knows he’s made the process infinitely easier for her. She had once ruined her daughters future for him because she couldn’t imagine ever wanting to hurt him the way he constantly hurt her. Now she wanted nothing more than to see him fall apart. She gets the house and one night, only two weeks after their separation (and before they’re legally divorced) Ben is curled up against her side watching some odd cartoon and casually mentions that Daddy’s new girlfriend is the same age as Katie. Nicola wants to gouge her own eyes out but she just smiles as Rosie comes into the bedroom to join them.

The divorce is over and done with by Christmas and she sits cradling a mug of tea, watching the robins in the garden through the window as the kids spend Boxing Day with James’ parents, she gets a text from Ella asking if she’ll come and get her, saying she wants to come home. Nicola goes off to find her coat and keys and wonders if she’s ever been happier.

She hasn’t.

Nicola Murray dies like a fire, burning brighter than anyone had ever thought possible before rising like a Phoenix from the ashes of her old self. She is reborn Nicola Clarke, a consultant at a nonprofit where all her staff think she’s interesting and quite funny, they honestly do. Nicola Clarke wears bright dresses and her hair grows long and she learns to, on the odd occasion, make decisions for herself and not for others. She learns to be selfish and experiences something she’s never experienced before: she suddenly feels like her life is her own. 


	2. the sea wants to take me

When Malcolm Tucker dies, he does not burn at the close of day. He doesn’t go screaming into the dusk. Malcolm Tucker goes silently and slowly in a way that no one really notices he’s gone.

Malcolm had been marching his way to the executioners block ever since he was a child, being ushered along by the likes of his father and Steve Fleming and the press, all of them. So he shouldn’t be surprised when the court inadvertently kills him but he is. Sure, he knows the game is cruel and this is the very nature of it all but he was  _ Malcolm fucking Tucker _ . He practically created the game so he, of all people, should’ve been immune to it. How naive he was.

As his career came to an end he realises he had spent it screaming and shouting not just because it had become his most finely honed skill but because even the notion of silence made him feel nauseous. Malcolm abhorred the idea of being left alone with his thoughts because even he couldn’t intimidate his conscience away. So, whenever his sister texted him a picture of her kids or he heard a new Whitehall Wanker whisper to another about his wedding ring, he focused solely on the latest (usually relatively minor) fuck-up and howled like a rabid animal with blazing eyes and gritted teeth until he was too tired to think about all the people he’d let down.

But trapped within the four grey walls of his cell, completely alone (for his own safety, finally being a wiry sickly-looking man had come in handy) he had no choice but to stare at the ceiling and listen to his own mind.

Within the first few days of his sentence, his mind went to Joanie, the sister he had abandoned in Glasgow. At the time he told himself he was hardly leaving her on her own, she was staying with their mother. But he knew their mother wasn’t in her right mind after their father died and Malcolm had left only a month after he’d been buried. It wasn’t their fault, the air was suddenly too thick to breathe in that house. The day Malcolm left, he kissed Joanie on the head and promised to visit soon. He could tell by the look in her eyes she knew he was lying but didn’t want to make him feel any worse so she just told him she loved him and watched him go. He wouldn’t see her for another seventeen years after that day, until Grace’s funeral.

There was another person he’d let down: Grace. Beautiful, fragile, volatile Grace. A diminutive English woman who married Malcolm only a year after they met. He loved her, truly he did, but he was working almost seventy hours a week and would go days at a time without even seeing her. That’s why he sits and wonders if things had been different, if  he  had been different, would Grace still be alive? Maybe if he hadn’t worked so much he would’ve noticed her drinking rapidly growing out of control. Maybe he would’ve been there the night she had decided to take a drive and ended up flipping the car three times on the motorway. He could’ve told her to stay.

But he wasn’t there.

Sam was the only one he worked with who knew what happened to Grace. She had once asked him why he still wore the ring over a decade later and he vaguely remembered saying something about the action; he wanted it to be gone but he could never bring himself to take it off. Sam had smiled sadly, taken a step around the desk and held out her hand. She had offered to take it off for him. Malcolm knew at that moment that no matter what, he could never let Sam get hurt. If he was a religious man he would’ve thought she’d been sent in order to give him a chance to right his wrongs. He has to protect her, which is why when she calls and tentatively suggests she could visit him, Malcolm instantly shuts her down. He’s poisonous and he can’t let her he pulled down with him. Just as she’s saying goodbye, he opens his mouth and finds himself mumbling  _ how’s Nicola  _ but by the time the words have slipped out Sam has already hung up. He swallows harshly and shuffles back to his cell.

Malcolm holds his head in his hands and wonders what on earth possessed him to ask her that. He shouldn’t be thinking about Nicola Murray. Sure, the last act of his career had been throwing her to the wolves but it was nothing he hadn’t done a hundred times before to better ministers than her. It shouldn’t be any different.

He’ll eat his own liver before he admits it but Malcolm hated hurting her. Humiliating her. And he knew he didn’t just do it for the party. If he had let her go gently, encouraged her to jump before she was pushed, it would’ve only been self-serving. Malcolm only would’ve been kind to her in the hopes she’d forgive him sooner and that one day she’d feel the same way about him that he felt about her. Although he didn’t even really know how he felt about her, it was all too new and nice and gentle. So Malcolm had to rip her apart, not because she deserved it because he did. His Catholic mother would’ve been proud of his aptness for self-flagellation.

The first person Malcolm calls when he’s finally out of gaol and in his own house is Sam. She cries with relief, telling him she’s going to bring some food round and asks him if he’s lost weight and Malcolm silently notes how the tables have turned. She shows up an hour later with four carrier bags of pasta and teabags and satsumas and they’re hanging from her arms as she sobs into his chest. He holds onto her as though she might run away.

It only takes Sam fifteen minutes to mention Nicola Clarke and their biweekly coffee meetings. Malcolm catches himself grinning at the idea of her husband being kicked to the curb and literally wipes it off his face with the back of his hand.

After only a week of being home, Malcolm realises cannot exist without a job so he starts searching for a something in public relations. It takes him longer than he would’ve liked - most firms don’t hire people with criminal records. He eventually finds something quiet and well-paid and while it’s nothing like his old job he thinks that’s for the best.

He starts going for walks, ridiculously long walks and he realises there are dozens of parks near him he’s never seen because he was always too busy. He calls Sam almost every day and eventually does the same with Joanie. She tells him about work and Glasgow and he can hear the faint laughter of children in the background. One day as their call is ending he promises to come visit soon. And this time he’s telling the truth. 

Malcolm Tucker dies like the tide, consuming everything and everyone within his reach before slowly but surely pulling away, disappearing over the horizon without a sound. When he is reborn, he remains Malcolm Tucker but is also everything he wishes Malcolm Tucker had been in the first place. He talks to his family and visits Sam because he knows he’s safe now and he’s vulnerable sometimes; something he didn’t even know he was capable of. Malcolm Tucker feels as though he’s allowed to exist, like he’s not taking up space he shouldn’t be occupying. It’s a new feeling and he quite likes it.


	3. love breaks my bones (and i laugh)

(08:50) Jamie - Hey there ye auld fuck. Sam  said you’re back. Call me.

(09:22) Jamie - Ye must be up by now wanker.

(09:58) Jamie - Pick up the fucking phone.

(10:27) Jamie - Did ye block me? Absolute cunt, I cannot believe ye blocked me.  
  


(10:44) Jamie - If ye don’t answer soon I’ll just come to yours.

  
(11:03) Jamie - Arsehole. I’m coming round now.

***

Malcolm stands on the edge of a bank, looking past the running river. The sun is almost blinding as it glares and reflects off the water, but when he squints he can make out two figures standing on the other side - his mother, wearing a sprigged dress and a beige cloth draped over her shoulders. His father, holding onto her forearms and yelling an inch from her face. His words are completely indistinct over the violent thrashing of the water against the rocks but his face is bright red and Malcolm can almost feel his painful grip.

He calls out to them, cupping his hand around his mouth, yet no matter how loud he shouts, his words come out as a tired, strangled groan. They do not hear him but he tries and tries to beckon them as his father’s hands shift to the collar of his mother’s dress, his body beginning to shake with anger.  
“ _Mam! Da! I’m here!_ ”  
He can feel the tremor of his limbs as he watches his mother’s attempts to push his father away, digging her heels into the ground as he pulls her closer.  
“ _Da! Da, please!_ ”

The scene feels all too familiar.

Malcolm can only look on as his father pulls back his fist and strikes his mother. Everything seems to be moving in slow-motion as she flies back to the floor and he screams out, calling desperately for them, but his pleas come out quiet and choked no matter how hard he tries. For the first time since he was a young boy, Malcolm feels nothing but helplessness and desperation.  
“ _It’s okay, Mam! I-I’m coming, I’m coming!”_ He doesn’t think about the fact he’s calling out to a limp body strewn across the grass as he clumsily pulls off his shirt and tears stream down his face.  
The sky whitens, light beginning to consume the world. He steps down into the river and wades through it as fast as he can, the movement of the stream pulling him back.“ _Mam! Mam!_ ”

“Wake up! Christ, calm down!”  
Malcolm is woken by a voice in his ear and a pair of hands clasping onto his shoulders, shaking him. His first instinct is to defend himself and without even opening his eyes he throws himself forward and grabs blindly at the person shouting. He screws his eyes shut and howls through gritted teeth in a way not dissimilar to an injured animal.  
“Malcolm, ye fuckin’ crazy bastard!”

He pulls back and wipes the sweat from his face before opening his eyes to see Jamie; Jamie MacDonald standing at his bedside looking like death, with his hands hovering in the air as a sign of surrender.  
Malcolm groans as he pulls his arms around his torso, trying to ignore the tingling in his hands. He feels like his whole body is on fire and he can’t stop breathing fast and hard no matter how hard ridicules himself for being so petrified by a fucking dream, by two people who knew aren’t even _here_ anymore.  
He closes his eyes and lets his head fall forward as Jamie carefully sits on the edge of the bed and stares at him - examines him. “Jesus, Malc. Gaol really did a number on ye.”

They’re sitting on opposite ends of the sofa now, both cradling mugs in their hands; when he was satisfied Malcolm wasn’t liable to have a total breakdown, Jamie had eventually left the bedroom to let him get dressed and, in the meantime, had brewed two cups of coffee and turned on the telly in anticipation of awkward silence.  
Malcolm keeps his gaze fixed on his cup and counts down from ten in his head, only to repeat himself every time he reaches zero.

“Sam told us ye were back. She said ye were doing alright and... I was waiting for ye to call, y’know.”  
He looks up at Jamie and realises that he, in his state of fear, hadn’t noticed the greys scattered across his scalp or the frown lines forming around his face. For a fraction of a second, Malcolm allows himself to ponder the fact that they’re starting to look alike.  
“I’ve just been busy. I’ve got a new job now and I’ve been going for walks and all that shite. I wanted to call you but... I didn’t know how we’d left things,” he mumbles, feeling slightly ashamed.  
Jamie nods silently and looks to the obscure old film playing in front of them.

“I’m not gonna ask. About this morning.”  
Malcolm sets down his cup and hums in agreement, mostly because he’s not sure what to say. Jamie doesn’t look back at him, not for a second.  
“I’m not gonna ask,” Jamie repeats with a loud huff, “because if I know, I’ll have to tell Sam when she calls me later and starts asking questions and gets all nervous and obsessive over you being ‘okay’. And - oh shit! That reminds me!”  
Malcolm watches in bemusement as Jamie clambers up to grab his coat from the rack in the hall and pulls his phone from the pocket.  
“I need to call her, let her know you’re alive. Told her I thought you’d offed yourself when I picked up the keys from her.”

Jamie traipses to the kitchen, mug in hand, and for some reason, Malcolm feels compelled to follow him. He can’t quite put his finger on it, but he feels almost lost. To say Jamie’s presence is unexpected would be an understatement, but Malcolm would never have thought it would throw him off like this.

“How’s your girl? What was her name -Angela? Annie?”  
He can see Jamie’s shoulders shaking softly with laughter as he turns to pour the remnants of his coffee down the sink.“Annalise. She’s good, you’d like her. We’ve been talking about moving in together.”  
Malcolm smiles, although the moment is somewhat soured when it occurs to him that he really must be incredibly old if he’s reached the point in time when even Jamie MacDonald has to think about settling down.  
“What about your girl?” Jamie asks with a grin, coming to lean on the counter opposite Malcolm.  
“What on Earth are ye talking about?”  
“Don’t take the piss out of me mate. Sam’s told me all about you and Nicola.”

Malcolm can’t help but find it unnerving, the tone Jamie takes on when he links them together. It’s an idea he’s thought about far too often, ‘Malcolm & Nicola’, and it hardly helps to know that the possibility exists in other peoples minds as well as his own.

“There’s no ‘me and Nic’la’. Haven’t talked to her since... fuckin‘ whatever, that’s it. It’s not going to happen, she’s not my type anyway,” he insists before handing Jamie his mug and asking him to put it in the sink.  
Jamie obliges but does so mostly to hide his smirk; part of him wants to say it’s more likely than Malcolm thinks. But he’s learnt from the best to keep his mouth shut when necessary, particularly when plotting. So he settles for a soft shrug and a “Yeah, you’re probably right”.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dream scene massively inspired by the poem ‘Eden Rock’ by one my favourite writers Charles Causley.


	4. before you were mine

_ None of it matters. Just breathe. _

  
Nicola inhales for seven seconds, holds for five and exhales for eight. She repeats this over and over as she totters around the house wearing the new heels that she hasn’t quite broken in, in search of her keys and glasses and something else she’s pretty sure she’s forgotten, although she can’t remember what. She can feel the weight of her anxiousness on her chest and mumbles to herself not to be so fucking stupid. Sundays always have her feeling nauseous and it’s just half a dozen (or perhaps two dozen) small problems that all seem to be piling on top of her, making her feel far more tired than she should. A small part of her wants to cancel her plans with Sam and go back to bed.  
  


No, she can’t do that. Sam had sounded so excited on the phone, bless her, and they did this every fortnight. It would only add to her nerves if she disrupted her routine. Nicola takes one last look in the hallway mirror and decides to just accept the fact that her hair looks as though she’s been fucked by a hurricane.  
  


_ Calm the fuck down. Calm down! It doesn’t matter.  
  
_

Her phone start buzzing once she’s in the car, and she can’t help but growl an irritated ‘oh for fucks sake’ because she knows without even looking at the screen that it’s James. He had taken to messaging her loosely-veiled threats and calling her every hour, ever since both Katie and Ella had told him they were too busy at university to visit him. For the third week in a row. The first few calls she had answered, telling him they were adults now and there was nothing she could do and that they were probably working, as they said they were. Now, a small part of her wants to pick up the phone and, in the smuggest voice possible, tell him that they had decided to visit her instead. But she reasons with herself; it would only backfire onto Katie and Ella, and with Katie being in her last year and Ella being in her first, neither of them need the added stress.  
  


_ It’s alright, it’s alright, just relax. None of it matters, it’s all alright.  
  
_

When Nicola was young, she would always cry at the scene in Dumbo when all the other baby elephants laugh at him. Little Nicky would clutch her teddy bear tight to her chest as her father pulled her onto his lap, chuckling as he told her she was too soft for her own good. As she got older, it was the adopt-an-endangered-whatever-the-fuck adverts on TV that made her bottom lip wobble and brang a lump to her throat. In the early years, James would press a kiss to her forehead and tell her not to be silly. However, as time passed, he tended to leave the room at the first sight of tears, leaving her to cuddle up on the sofa with the kids as Katie quickly changed the channel. And now, she finds herself suddenly bursting into loud, shuddering sobs solely because of the way Sam’s eyes light up as she reaches into her handbag and pulls out a ridiculously extensive stack of leaflets on IVF and sperm donors and lord knows what else.  
  


“Oh, sweetheart. Are you alright?”  
Nicola feels a handkerchief being pressed into her palm and she looks up to see Sam holding it out to her, her other hand patting her on the back.  
“I’m fine, I’m fine! I’m just being silly,” she mumbles softly, sniffling and dabbing at her eyes, cursing the fact that she knows her mascara isn’t waterproof, “I’m happy for you! That’s all.”  
Sam just looks at her for a moment, all big eyes and a comforting smile and, despite being over a decade older than her, Nicola can’t help but silently acknowledge that she’ll be a wonderful mother. A natural. Nothing like Nicola was.  
  


“Anyway, enough of me blubbering,” she says after a few moments, when she finally knows she’s not liable to burst into tears yet again, “So, when’re you going to that clinic you were telling me about?”  
“We’ve got another consultation next Thursday. That’s why I’m making a big deal out of Lisa’s birthday this year - might be the last time she can drink for a while.”  
Nicola begins absentmindedly flicking through one of the leaflets on the table.  
“Oh yeah, weekend after next, isn’t it? The kids are with James that weekend so I can come early if you want. Help set everything up.”  
“Don’t worry about it, her family are coming down before to help out. We’re doing it at that pub we all went to ages ago, you remember, that one in Camden.”  
Nicola is still scanning the leaflet, trying not to laugh like a child at a particularly detailed diagram, when she feels the small table shift slightly and a hand coming to rest over her forearm.  
“There’s actually... well, there’s something else I wanted to talk to you about.”  
  


_Seven in, hold for five, eight out. One, two, three..._  
  


Nicola knows that expression. She’d recognise it from a mile off, and it sends a chill down her spine; that small upturn of the corners of her mouth, the subtle twitching of her nose - it’s the face Sam makes when she’s scheming, when she’s about to propose something she just knows will cause trouble. Nicola enjoys seeing it directed at other people but now it’s directed at her and she’s both enthralled and truly terrified.  
“What is it?”  
Sam shifts in her chair as if preparing herself for something and Nicola takes a generous bite from the tuna sandwich she’s essentially stolen from Sam, hoping it’ll somehow mask her nervousness.  
“Malcolm is going to be there. And I think you might like to talk to him.”  
  


“Oh, piss off!”  
Her mouth moves much quicker than her mind and the reaction comes from somewhere deep in her chest, some part she isn’t very comfortable with, and whilst Sam bursts into laughter at the sheer shock on Nicola’s face, she gasps at her own behaviour.  
“I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean to say that!” she exclaims, her mouth gaped as continues in a much smaller voice, “I’m sorry. I-I really didn’t mean that.”  
It takes a minute or two but Sam finally stops cackling and sits up in her chair, wiping tears from her eyes as she holds a hand to her chest.  
“Listen, just hear me out,” she says, her breathing somewhat laboured, “obviously you don’t need to talk about, well, everything. But maybe say hello, break the ice. I promise to buy you as many glasses of wine as you need to do it. It’ll be good for you! And for him. And maybe for me.”  
Nicola scoffs dryly, crossing her arms over her chest.  
“I didn’t even know he was out of prison.”  
“He got out early. Good behaviour. Just do it, it’s not like you’ll have to see him again after that. He won’t make a big scene if that’s what you’re worried about. He doesn’t do that anymore.”  
  


Burying her head in her hands, Nicola is even more exhausted than she was at the beginning of the day. And then a thought occurs to her and, once again, her mouth moves before her mind has a chance to stop it.  
“Did he ask you to do this? To ask me to talk to him?”  
She’ll realise, later on, that Sam was obviously lying. Or rather Sam will tell her, mostly because they’ll both be pissed and won’t care anymore.  
”Yes. He asks after you all the time, Nicola.”

_  
Fuck. _


End file.
